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The summer that we planned for in the beginning of the year is turning out a lot different than the summer we’re experiencing. Two of the three summer camps the kids were planning on attending have been cancelled and our August trip to Alaska has been cancelled. We did however plan to spend a week on the boat and decided that since we’re already working from home, why not extend time on the boat and work from there. So we spend the last three weeks on the Chesapeake. The first week we were at my in-laws house in Rock Hall, and then we hopped on the boat. The kids spent two straight weeks on the boat and then Dave and I and his parents traded on and off traveling with them.

We took the first leg from Rock Hall to Broad Creek, the Wye River and then to St. Michaels. The Sharps met us in St. Michaels and spent the next five days traveling down to Smith Island, Solomon Island and then to Crisfield, MD, where we met them for another switch.

The weather on our first day out was not ideal – rain and chilly – but fortunately that was the only day of bad weather we had.
  • Lauren and I kayaking on Broad Creek
  • Sunset on the Wye River
Smith Island is known for their cake, which has multiple layers of cake and icing. It was a hit.

Over the next seven days we traveled a little further south to Tangier, Va., which is a small island off the coast of Virginia.

Tangier, Va.

It’s been a destination on Dave’s list for a while, and I’d actually never even heard of it, even though I grew up in Virginia! It was like no other place I’ve been in the US, and felt a lot like coming into a small Caribbean island. The marina hasn’t been well maintained, mostly because it’s run by a man named Mr. Parks, who has been running it for decades and is now 89. It’s unclear if there is a succession plan in place, but based on our experience, when Mr. Parks is no longer with us, I think the marina won’t be long for the island. But that might not make a difference because it’s projected that the island won’t be there for much longer anyway. It’s slowly sinking into the Chesapeake. It’s also beautiful.

There are about 450 people that live there full time, most of them professional crabbers. We were able to walk the full island and we saw 2 ice creams shops, 1 restaurant called Lorraine’s that had the best soft shell crab I’ve ever had, 2 churches, 1 K-12 school, 1 island history museum, and a heck of a lot of Trump supporters. Most everyone drives around in golf carts on the roads that still exist, and parts of the island that are no longer accessible via golf cart are accessible via boat. We brought our sea kayaks along with us and explored the island that way as well.

  • Sophie with her catch
  • above ground graves
  • crab shacks on the water
  • golf cart in the driveway
  • view from the middle of the island
  • our view from the marina
  • Dave and Sophie exploring an area that used to be a road
Lauren sitting on the front of the kayak I was paddling. It was so shallow here she could have just stood up and talked next to the boat.

A fellow sailor told us about a beach that we could walk to, which was about 1.5 miles from the marina. One day we walked there and fortunately on the next day we brought the girls razor scooters so they rode there – much less complaining 😉

  • the walk to the beach
  • Sophie caught a puffer fish in my hat

After two days in Tangier we headed back north and over the next five days hit Lookout Point, Solomon’s Island, North Beach and Flat Island.

  • Sunset at Lookout Point

We anchored out the last night at Flat Island, but the other spots we docked at marinas. Most had pools which was nice because it was pretty hot and unfortunately in a few of the places there were sea nettles, which hurt terribly when they sting, so the kids couldn’t jump off the boat and swim.

  • kayaking at Flat Island

The girls did a lot of fishing off the back of the boat, but only made one catch all week, which was unfortunately too small to eat. They were not deterred though.

Over the two weeks Sophie learned to crab from a fellow boater we met. She caught over a dozen crabs, but we didn’t end up keeping any. Lauren learned to dive and by the end of the week had almost perfect form. And I worked on my boat handling skills. The bar was pretty low there, but still, there was good improvement.

We made it back to Rock Hall for the 4th of July and the weather was just too nice, so we hopped back on the boat for a day of anchoring and swimming at our favorite spot, Swan Creek. The Sharps joined us and Dave brought his sunfish to sail around on.

  • Dave and Soph on the Sunfish
  • swimming with PopPop
  • sparklers for the 4th

It was just the long break we needed! At the end of the two week the girls 2 hit 10 ports of call and 273 nautical miles. Not too shabby!

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On June 6th we lost our beloved Benson.

He was our first kid and the girls first dog. We were so fortunate to have had almost 14 years with him. When we got him from Philadelphia Animal Control, a horrendous organization that has since been closed, he was about 7 months old and pretty sick, but with the most loving heart you will ever know.

He made three house moves with us, and was my work companion for the first six months of Maven while we worked out of Rebecca’s house. He was our travel companion, tagging along on many the boat vacation and car trips up and down the east coast. In his younger days he was our hiking and trail running buddy, only straying from our side when he saw a squirrel. He loved people and had a healthy fear of small yappy dogs and cats, having no idea of his size and strength.

Both of our kids learned to crawl by trying to reach him and to walk by pulling themselves up on him. While he would give us the occasional side eye, he never once yelped, barked or tried to hurt them.

  • Sophie around 18 months
  • Lauren around 10 months
  • Sophie around 4 months

Both girls loved him, but it was clear that Lauren was really his true companion. She always wanted to know where he was, would wake him up if he was having a bad dream, would drape a blanket over him if he looked cold, and gave him endless snuggles, whether he really wanted them or not.

While the last months have been tough on everyone, quarantining allowed us to spend literally every day of his last three months with him.

We’re all still feeling sad and missing him so much, but our hearts are also full of great memories of the best dog there ever was.

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At the beginning of all of this I realized quickly that I needed to pick my battles, and one of the battles that I just wasn’t up for fighting was getting Sophie to brush her hair. She constantly needs to be reminded to brush her hair, and even then it doesn’t happen regularly. She has very thick hair that gets knotted easily, and if I try to brush it major drama ensues. So, after a week or so I just threw in the towel and stopped pestering her. And here’s what happened…

After about 3 weeks not brushing her hair.

It was bad. Really, it was beyond bad. Dreads had started to form. Attempting to brush it was out of the question. Cutting was the only option. It took several days to talking about it before Sophie agreed to let me do it. I wasn’t super comfortable, it was a lot of hair, but it had to be done. I watched a lot of home haircut YouTube videos first.

Here’s how it turned out. Not too bad if I do say so myself! Once it was all off of her head she was really happy. I think it felt really good.

And not to be left out, Lauren also wanted a cut. I took off a few inches, but was nervous to do too much more. She really wants it as short as Sophie’s, but I’m not confident that I could recreate that again.

Here’s Lauren’s new cut.

We’re all anxiously awaiting salons to open again so that mom doesn’t have to be the resident hairdresser for much longer. And honestly, no one wants them open more than me, as I’m starting to see just how gray I really am!

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We had a very low key Easter this year since we’re all still under a stay at home order in Pennsylvania. We died Easter eggs on Saturday and then on Sunday morning we had a hunt in our backyard. Unlike the last few years where we get dressed up and head to brunch at the Union League, the girls didn’t even get out of their PJs until the afternoon. In general it’s been a challenge to get them dressed each day, and honestly, who can blame them! If you have the ability to wear pajamas all day, it’s hard to not do that.

  • Dying Easter eggs
  • Before the hunt – still in their PJs!
  • Hunting in the backyard
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I don’t even know what title to give this blog post because it encompasses so much. But I think “weird times” is at least accurate.

On March 12th we were informed that schools would be closed for two weeks because of the Coronavirus, which they’re now calling COVID-19. Rebecca and I decided that we should also close our officer for two weeks because it seemed to be spreading pretty quickly. At that point maybe half of the professional service businesses in Philadelphia decided to have their staff work remotely, if possible. Within a week we were looking at more closures, and recommendations of social distancing, and two weeks after that we were living in statewide shutdown, schools were closed indefinitely, restaurants were closed, and we were all living under a stay-at-home order.

I’m writing this blog post about a month into it and here’s what our new normal looks like.

SCHOOL

Dave and I are homeschooling the girls for the remainder of the year. They both have time during the day where they Zoom with their classes, as well as Zoom into their “specials,” like French, art, gym, music, etc. We’ve set up a schedule for the girls to keep things consistent and predictable. Right now we’re doing math in the morning and reading/language arts in the afternoon. This is all between juggling our work schedules. Challenging doesn’t even begin to describe it.

Before the school started sending lessons home we made up our own. Lauren and I did patterns with fruit and the girls put together a PowerPoint presentation for St. Patrick’s Day.

SOCIALIZING

Since we can’t see anyone in person anymore, we’ve been setting up Zoom get togethers with friends and family. Although not quite the same as seeing people in person, they’re actually a lot of fun and still fulfills that need to interact with people! Not seeing friends has been pretty tough on the kids. Sophie has been FaceTiming with a few friends who have devices, and Lauren has a friend in the neighborhood that she visits with from across the street. Last week one of Sophie’s classmates had a birthday and the family arranged a birthday “parade” where people decorate their car and slowly drive by the house to wish Happy Birthday to the birthday person. We’re all just trying to make it work.

  • Boyle / Sharp family Zoom
  • Maven happy hour
  • Caribbean themed Zoom with the Townsends
  • Rainer Family Zoom, including Nana, who is 94 and has fewer issues with the technology than some of my clients!
If we do want to “socialize” outside of the house, this is what we need to do. This is me before going into the grocery store in March.

ACTIVITIES

Sophie’s choir and Lauren’s ballet have both moved to virtual classes. Definitely not the same, but it works. Both of their spring recitals have been cancelled already (although I haven’t told them yet, because they’ll both be really disappointed). They’ve stopped taking piano lessons because their teacher said it’s a little hard teaching kids so young virtually. I’ve kept them up with it though, having them practice each day and working with them on new songs. It’s been a very long time since I’ve really sat down to play the piano, so I’m not going to say it’s been seamless. I have kept up with my violin lessons, still taking them every other week via FaceTime with my teacher. It actually works pretty well. The only real snafu is that we can’t play together because there is a slight time delay.

  • Virtual ballet in our living room
  • Virtual choir rehearsal

We leave the house every day to walk or to ride bikes, but haven’t been to a store in over three weeks. Fortunately there are a lot of delivery options for us. Restaurants are all closed for dining in, but a lot of them are doing take out and delivery. Grocery story delivery is pretty hard to get now because of demand, but we’ve found some commercial food distributors who are now doing home delivery. We have to order in the bulk size that restaurants get, but at least we have no shortage of food. We’ve been doing a lot of cooking and baking, which is actually one of the upsides of this whole situation. Since Dave is home now he cooks dinner almost every night, which has been amazing. That’s another upside, having Dave home. He hasn’t not traveled for this extended amount of time ever. It’s actually the longest consecutive amount of time we’ve spent together since college!

  • Dave teaching Sophie how to sear a steak
  • making homemade pasta
  • cupcakes in honor of PopPop’s birthday (he enjoyed them virtually)
Cooking and baking have become a big part of our days. We joke that we’re all going to gain the COVID-19(lbs).
Since we can’t go anywhere, we’ve been getting creative about making our home and yard more of an adventure. Last weekend we had a camp out in the yard (although didn’t sleep outside because it started to rain)
As the weather has gotten nicer we’ve been having more backyard picnics. Every day we’re thankful for our backyard!

Right now we’re not sure when things will start to go back to normal. The PA Governor just extended our stay at home order until May 8, but I’m pretty sure it’ll go beyond that. Right now we’re just taking it one day at a time!

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On April 1 we celebrated Benson’s 14th birthday!

The girls made him some homemade treats, which he gobbled up. He’s slow these days, but still likes to go out for a walk most days, even if he can only make it a few houses before we need to turn back. He had his annual check up recently and the vet said that his heart still sounds good. His front legs give him some trouble, and lately he’s been losing his balance a bit, but overall, he’s a happy old man who has lived a good, long life 🙂

The girls made him homemade dog treats in the shape of hearts.
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The weekend after Sophie’s birthday I headed to Clearwater, FL for my annual girls weekend with Sallie and Aleen. We went to the same resort in Florida we did last year because it was spectacular. We went earlier in the year so that we were there for both Aleen and Sallie’s birthday month. Turns out Florida is actually a little chilly in March. But, it was still fabulous.

These pictures basically sum up the weekend. Lot of lazing around, sipping cocktails by the pool, and watching sunsets over the ocean. It was heaven.
The girls!
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On March 2nd Sophie turned a decade old! She decided to celebrate with a sleepover. She was limited to just two friends, for all of our sanity, and she picked Dior and Ella. My parents, Becky, and Ari also came up for the weekend. It was nice to have Ari there to play with Lauren.

The girls started the night with a favorite activity, making slime! After that I made cupcakes and they decorated them. We were going to make it a decorating contest, but decided to just let the girls do whatever they wanted – which was mostly adding as many toppings as possible.

Making slime in the playroom
The girls decorating cupcakes

Later in the evening the girls watched a movie in the basement, played with the Ouija board, and did Lord knows what else. I tried to get them to sleep around midnight, and at 2am had one of the friends come in and want to go home, but fortunately I was able to get her settled enough to go to sleep. I can confirm it was a night of little sleep for all.

The next day we had a family party with Dave’s parents too. She opened presents and we did cake.

  • Celebrating the entire set of Judy Blume books
  • One of her favorite gifts, a hoverboard (also a new jean jacket)!

Overall it was a pretty good birthday weekend! Sunday night everyone slept very well 😉

Cheers to 10 years!!
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So far 2020 has been treating us well!

We began the year with a New Year’s Eve sleepover with the Devine’s at our house. We had a “game night” theme, where we played board games and Dave prepared four courses of game meat. It was delicious and fun.

On New Year’s Day we all went for a hike in Wissahickon.

The girls with Ava and Emma Devine in Wissahickon on New Year’s Day.

It’s been an unseasonably warm January – in 40s, 50s, and a few days of 60s! One of the warmest days was also a day off from school, so I took the girls to the zoo, which was not expecting the crowds that it had. Note Lauren wearing shorts in the pics!

  • Up close and personal with a penguin

Dave and I went to the annual Union League Commodore’s Ball again. He’s not in yacht club leadership any more, but we went to support some friends who are. It’s always a fun, somewhat ridiculous evening.


At the Commodore’s Ball

Sophie is in her school’s choir, called Levering Mill, which is just for 4th and 5th graders. She’s also in the 3rd-5th grade all student choir, which held a combined concert in January. There were so many kids that they had to do it at Bala Cynwyd middle school, which has a large auditorium.

  • Sophie had a duet – front, right
  • the full choir

And then a few days later Lauren had her 1st grade musical, which was called Pirates, The Musical. It was very cute. All the kids do the singing and the teachers do the dialogue.

  • 1st grade pirates
  • Lauren and her friend, Gabriel

And we had a weekend visit from Shannon Boyle and her boyfriend Joey. They stayed over and we took them to the Flyers game, where they finally won one! The girls were very happy to be reunited with Shannon 🙂

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Since Lauren’s birthday falls during the holiday break, her first grade class had a celebration for her the last day of school for the year, which also happened to be pajama day – bonus!

Dave and I came in and read a story to the class and she gave out pencils to everyone.

  • Lauren and her friend Janney
  • With her teacher, Ms. Gorodesky

Her actual birthday was the Saturday after Christmas and this year we did an American Ninja Warrior party at a gym in West Chester that has trained actual competitors who have been on the show. Obviously they adjusted the course for 7 year olds. She invited her entire class, of which about half came, and everyone had a great time!

  • With her friend Norah from Bala House
  • The birthday gang
  • striking a ninja pose
  • Rainbow unicorn cake, of course

That night we had a second family party at the house. The cake was huge so we threw another candle on it and sang happy birthday again. It was actually the same cake that Sophie had on her 7th birthday. Lauren saw a picture of it recently and insisted she get one too. Good choice, it’s delicious!

At 7, Lauren is always the first to offer help if someone needs it, whether it’s carrying something from the car or cleaning up a mess, even if it’s not hers. She loves her Mr. Benson and always has snuggles for him, even though he’s the smelliest dog in the world. She love to tell jokes and make others laugh. She’s also such a monkey, running and climbing on everything. Which is why the trampoline you see in the background was the perfect birthday present 😉 Happy Birthday to this amazing, kind, funny kid!

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